Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re is the latest to target an upsized issuance for its new catastrophe bond, with the reinsurer now seeking $200 million in US named storm retrocession from the Queen Street 2023 Re dac transaction.

Aon Securities, the capital markets and investment banking arm of the insurance and reinsurance broker, has hired experienced insurance-linked securities (ILS) market executive Paschal Brooks.

A particularly strong performance through the month of April 2023 now sees catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format with an average return for the first four months of the year of 5.50%, with both higher and lower-risk cat bond fund strategies faring particularly well during the period.

Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is the latest catastrophe bond sponsor in 2023 to target an enlarged issuance size, with what was a $150 million target for its new Bayou Re Ltd. (Series 2023-1) deal, now lifted to target as much as $220 million in reinsurance from the cat bond.

The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) of the Bank of England is continuing to work to simplify its approach to insurance-linked securities (ILS), still hoping the reinsurance market segment will “take off” in the country.

Trading of catastrophe bond notes in the secondary market has picked up in the last few weeks as cat bond fund managers and investors look to adjust their portfolios to accommodate the brisk flow of newly issued deals, helped in part by a record over $2 billion of issuance in April 2023, by Artemis’ numbers.

Eclipse Re Ltd., a private syndicated collateralised reinsurance note, private catastrophe bond issuance and reinsurance transformer platform owned and operated by Artex Capital Solutions, has completed the issuance of two private cat bond arrangements totalling almost $18.8 million of risk capital issued.

Speaking with Artemis in a recent video interview, Jorge Familiar, Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank explained that client country demand for catastrophe bonds and risk management arrangements will likely rise, while he also expects that markets will be there to support these issuances.

Demonstrating the attactiveness of insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments at this time, the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index has delivered its highest returns for a first-quarter of any year since 2007.

US primary insurer Allstate has brought down the top of its Nationwide excess catastrophe reinsurance tower a little, at its latest renewal, with the program now only extending to $6.924 billion of losses, compared to $7.01 billion at the end of 2022.